BROOKLYN, Ohio - Brooklyn city officials met quietly with American Greetings Corp. executives on Tuesday to talk about how to keep the company from leaving Brooklyn.

But neither side would divulge details on what was said.

Yet the fact that the two sides are still talking - in the first official meeting since the greeting card told employees on Jan. 6 that it might move its headquarters and its 2,000 workers out of Northeast Ohio - seems to indicate something is in the works.

"At this point, we're just listening to what they have to say," said American Greetings spokeswoman Patrice Sadd. She did not elaborate, saying: "We're still at the very early stages of discovering what to do next."

American Greetings told employees in an internal memo last month that "we are launching a study to consider whether or not we should move the company's world headquarters to another location" because Brooklyn voters last spring raised the city's payroll tax 25 percent to 2.5 percent, from 2.0 percent.

With $1.7 billion in annual sales, American Greetings is the city's largest and highest-profile employer. It pays about $3 million a year, or 13 percent, of the city's total annual budget of about $24 million.

"Today we met with American Greetings. We had a preliminary discussion to get a sense of their needs," it said.

"We are working together with the Ohio Department of Development and the Greater Cleveland Partnership to formulate a plan to keep American Greetings here in Brooklyn," it concluded.

Balbier, City Council President Kathleen Pucci, Finance Director Dennis Kennedy and Economic Development Director Fran Migliorino all went over to American Greetings' headquarters on Tuesday.

Sadd did not identify who represented the company at the table.

American Greetings' Chairman Morry Weiss and his son, Chief Executive Zev Weiss, were among the company executives who met with Gov. Ted Strickland and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher to talk about the same topic on Jan. 11.

Former Councilman Greg Frey, now president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, said that "if American Greetings were to leave Brooklyn, it would be a really, really hard blow to the people of this community, and until this gets settled, we're all on pins and needles."

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